Forza Horizon 4 – Battle Royale

Forza Horizon 4, Battle Royale. What?!

A series of games synonymous with realistic driving, licensed car models and sprawling world maps in which to explore and race. Dipping it’s toes in the water of a pretty well-established genre that rarely involves racing, realistic cars, or anything that Forza delivers as a standard.

There’s no way that this could work, right?

Wrong. Playground Games have taken the core Battle Royale experience and made it work in the world of racing. Better still, I’ve been having a wonderful time getting to grips with it.

If I’m honest, when someone told me about it, I balked. I love the Forza Horizon series and curse myself for never having enough time to just play through one at the moment. I love a Battle Royale, too. So it’s a combination I can get on board with, but I just couldn’t see it working.

 

The Eliminator

Enter The Eliminator.

The mode you never knew you needed in a Forza game.

The core concepts are the same here. You all start off with the same gear (usually fists and nothing else), in this case, everyone starts with a Mini Cooper.

Then, pick where you want to start (you’re not jumping out of a plane here), and get ready for the round to start.

Forza pits you against 71 other drivers, scattered across the whole game world.

You don’t loot and shoot, you drive and you find random car upgrades around the map. Marked by smoke and drones, you can switch to an improved vehicle, and keep finding newer, better ones if you’re lucky.

The mini is a rank 1 car, and the others go from 2 to 9. I’ve never picked anything up beyond a 3, so I’ve found myself in late-game circles trying to race a Volkswagen Touareg against a Spyder…..it did not go well.

Of course, it’s not all roaming the countryside and finding new cars, there’s the standard “ever-shrinking circle” to contend with. So you’re in the world of Forza, driving the cars of Forza, but playing by the rules of PUBG or Fortnite. It’s got the same intensity to it, especially when you see a new car, but you can see an opponent nearby, too.

 

Battle it out

How on earth does someone win, then?

Well, this is Forza, so you have to race, of course.

This is my favourite little implementation of the lot. You can’t have gun fights, this is a racing game. So how do you knock each other out, and become victorious?

The Eliminator has this lovely, simple and effective way of letting people square-up to each other. If you get close enough to someone else, you simply press in on the right thumb-stick, and challenge them to a race.

The checkpoint could be a way away, and you can’t guarantee the direction you’re currently facing is the way the race is going to be……You lay down the challenge and then you race for your life to get to the finish line.

You win, you stay in and can take on the car of your opponent, if you so desire. If you lose, you’re out.

I’ve had races over a kilometer or so, and some only a couple of hundred meters (circle size matters). So you’ve got to be ready to gun it as quickly as you can.

Honestly, Forza feels more exhilarating here, than some of the games I’ve played of your more traditional Battle Royale games as of late.

The thought behind it, the simplicity and the implementation are superb. So much effort added to the game, for free!

Better still, Forza Horizon 4 is a part of the Xbox Gamepass, and you can get 3 months for £1 at the moment. So for a quid, you could play it for 3 months solid if you like!

 

Get stuck in

Look, if you’re like me and you enjoy the Forza Horizon series, or perhaps you fancy a new twist on the battle royale genre, I can’t recommend this enough.

I’ve been able to work towards my in-game influence, explore the map and gain XP still. So I’ve been having a great time in quick bursts of frenetic chaos. All the while improving my standing in the core game. Cool, eh?

I want to get to the point where I can do a full review of Forza Horizon 4, but right now I’m not sure I can. However, if you can pick it up in Gamepass for next to nothing, or if you already have it, it’s well worth a go.

Next time I’ll place top 10 at least!